Multi-service transport and aggregation platforms are capable of supporting any transport protocol, such as Time Division Multiplexing (TDM), Ethernet, storage, video, and the like, on any available port on a line card. Such platforms can include user-programmable line ports, allowing services of up to 10 Gbps to be provisioned, upgraded, or changed through software.
For example, a transport and aggregation platform can be configured to utilize ITU G.709 standards-based technology (also known as Digital Wrapper). The platform can groom multiple optical services running on any port onto higher-speed wavelengths. These higher-speed wavelengths, such as an Optical Transmission Unit of level 1 (OTU1) (2.7 Gbps) or an Optical Transmission Unit of level 2 (OTU2) (10.7 Gbps) signals, carry any mix of individual services up to 10 Gbps. Standards-based protocols supported can include: 10/100/1000 Ethernet, 10 Gbps Ethernet, OC-3/12/48/192, or STM1/4/16/64, FC/FICON, ESCON, OTU1, OTU2, etc.
In communications networks, such as transport and aggregation networks, current systems and methods include L1 cross-connects typically in transport-oriented devices like Digital Cross-connect Systems (DCSs) and Add-Drop Multiplexers (ADMs), and L2 cross-connects (i.e., Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) cross-connects) in multi-service switches (MSSs) and SONET Multi Service Provisioning Platforms (MSPPs). With current techniques, a physical connection must terminate on an L1 switching card or on an L2 switching card. This reduces flexibility and makes network planning more difficult.
A traditional transport and aggregation platform has a fixed relationship between client port bandwidth and transport network port bandwidth. For example, a Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) client port consumes exactly 1 Gb of transport or Optical Transport Network (OTN) bandwidth. Given a limit of 10 Gbps of bandwidth per wavelength and the mapping of GbEs into Virtual Concatenation Groups (VCGs), where a VCG is a collection of one to sixteen 155 Mbps timeslots contained in an OTU1, a single-wavelength transport and aggregation network can only carry eight GbE clients. To carry more than eight GbE clients, one must stack on additional transport and aggregation platforms and add a wavelength to the network for every eight additional GbE clients. The lack of scale in this solution can cause the cost and complexity of the total network solution to be unacceptable for a service provider. Especially when those GbEs are underutilized.
Further, traditional transport and aggregation platforms cannot deliver service to Ethernet ports of different speeds. In other words, one cannot connect a Fast Ethernet (FE) client to a GbE client, nor a GbE client to a 10 GbE client, etc. Systems and methods are thus needed to effectively combine L1 and L2 cross-connects in a transport and aggregation platform.